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Comment by 11thEarlOfMar | Hacker News Reader

Roger that. We visited Venice in October, off season. First night in the restaurant, 4 tables surrounding us... 3 were Americans and the 4th French.

As noted elsewhere, the cost of Intercontinental travel is dropping and the primary tourist destinations are overwhelmed, even in off seasons.

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I was in Venice in May a couple of years ago. While the city was cool, and the typical attractions were fun to see, we were a bit underwhelmed.

We then hopped a RyanAir flight to Bari because that's where my wife's family emigrated from. Thought we'd rent a car, spend 4-5 hours hopping around Bari and then move on to Naples. We ended up spending 4 nights and completely loved the city and the whole of Puglia. It ended up being the best part of the trip.

Maybe it was just expectations were reversed, but we truly loved Bari, and could have just skipped Venice and Naples and spent more time there. Not that Venice and Naples were disappointing, but they didn't stand out at the end of the trip.

Italy as a whole was wonderful. Can't wait to go back.

I love Bari. In general, I've found the "deep cuts" in Italy to be way better than the tourist traps. I most recently spent two weeks in rural Sicily where there wasn't much to do and it was fantastic.

Do you need to speak Italian to travel in these places? I’d love to see more of Italy but not sure how hard it is to get by on English.

English works fine. Get a roaming data plan and use google translate for situations where basic english doesn't cut it. I also print out common phrases and words and try and learn a little bit of the cultural nuances (hand signals, body language etc) which always help break the ice and make communication easier / fun.

I'm in Venice right now and while there are many tourists (this city survives entirely on tourism) it's far from overwhelmed. We haven't waited in any lines in Italy as a whole -- the only real line we encountered was at the Colosseum, and that took about 20 minutes.

There are certainly places that are less busy but I wouldn't outright discourage anyone from traveling to the popular places. It's not that difficult to avoid the crowds and there are tons of things worth seeing.

You are still visiting in the off season transitioning to peak summer season with August being the worst. Go back when schools get out in North America, Europe, and Asia, then let us know how it compares. Try it again when Europe is on Holiday in August.

I went in May when schools were getting out and I could tell the difference by the end of the week. Make appointments to the popular places to avoid the lines.

There's absolutely a high season for tourists. That's what I was referring to when I said it's not that difficult to avoid the crowds; all we did was go during the off-season.

Some places are great enough to survive their hype. Not many.

Why do you care who else is in the restaurant with you?

Restaurants whose clientele is mainly foreigners will often adapt their menus to what they think foreigners want, and their prices to what they think foreigners will pay. So, if you want to eat the local food as ordinary locals will eat it, and you don't want to be ripped off, then you might want to avoid places where the other diners are likely to be fellow foreign tourists.

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